From the Archives III – Tangerine Thievery in the '60s

Whoever says ‘Précieuses’ says ‘applesien’. But when did that start? The first book of minutes shows that in 1952, when the new members were inaugurated, the meeting was adjourned to enjoy a tangerine. It is unclear whether this tangerine is related to the ‘appelsienedief’ (“orange thief”) from our association's anthem, but it is certainly plausible.

The first hard evidence (found so far) that the ‘Et viens’ was sung by our association is the following card:

In translation, the front reads:

Nijmegen, March 2, 1960

Honoured Miss Niederer,

I would like to thank you and your board and the members of Les Précieuses Ridicules, on behalf of my fiancée as well, for the lovely bouquet of freesias you sent us. It did me, especially, good to receive from Précieuses, of which I have been a member with heart and soul, a flowery congratulation on this day.

And the back:

I wish Les Précieuses Ridicules long years of enjoyment from dance and games, and hope in the future to once again have the pleasure of experiencing a real Précieuses feast of waltz, gavotte and minuet.

Kind regards and n' appele sienedief, I heb oe toch zo lief,

Tessie Ann Muller

This sweet note was sent by Tessie Ann, who was abactis for part of the year in 1956. Earlier, she and her fiancé, Johan van der Putt (quaestor in 1959), had sent their wedding announcement to LPR. Apparently, the current board had sent her a bouquet of freesias to congratulate her and in response, Tessie Ann had sent this note. The ‘Miss Niederer’ being addressed is Betty Niederer, the then current abactis.

Note the wavy edges of the paper, something that was apparently very trendy for official letters at this time, given that our archive is full of them. Also notable are the two holes in the note, which were clearly not present when Tessie Ann first wrote her message, but were probably made when the abactis added this note to her abactis binder.

Our attention, of course, is drawn to the closing: ‘Kind regards and n’ appele sienedief, ik heb oe toch zo lief.’ It is clearly part of the refrain of our “Et viens” is quoted here! What further role the song played in the association is not (yet) clear, because at this time, general meetings were still opened and closed with the ‘Christian greeting’. That the association already had fun back then is evident from the words of this abactis i.t., who was apparently no longer a member, but still hoped to join a fun Précieuses party.

Research into the origins of the ‘Et viens’ is far from complete, but thanks to Tessie Ann, we now have a slightly better idea of how the song was used. Thank you Tessie Ann!